Oocyte quality improvement using a herbal medicine comprising 7 crude drugs

Taketo Inoue, Yoshiyuki Ono, Yukiko Yonezawa, Michinobu Oi, Naomi Kobayashi, Junji Kishi, Nobuyuki Emi

Herb Pharmacy Co., Ltd., Kobe, Japan.
Ono Ladies Clinic, Hyogo, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/ojog.2013.31A036                

Abstract

Maternal age is a significant factor in infertility treatment. Ovarian function and oocyte quality decrease with age, whereas the frequency of chromosomal abnormalities increases. In this study, improvement of oocyte quality and ovarian function were attempted using a herbal medicine comprising 7 crude drugs:Angelicae radix,Rehmanniae radix,Plantaginis semen,Lonicerae flos,Carthami flos,Ginseng radix, andCucurbita moschata Duch. Thirty-one women who repeatedly failed to conceive by intracytoplasmic sperm injection took the herbal medicine before breakfast and dinner from the start of menstrual cycle in the ovum pickup cycle. Average patient age was 38.5 ± 0.7 years, and the average ovum pickup frequency on the first dosage day was 7.9 ± 1.5. To analyze the effects of herbal medicine intake, the number of recovered and mature oocytes, their morphology and physical qualities, as well as the rates of fertilization, oocyte development, and pregnancy was compared before and after intake. The recovered and mature oocyte numbers, oocyte morphology and physical qualities, and fertilization rate were not significantly different before and after drug intake. However, the oocyte development rate was significantly higher(58.0%) after herbal medicine intake than before (32.5%; p = 0.0003). Moreover, the successful pregnancy rate was significantly higher after intake than before (6.9% versus 0%; p = 0.0111). Herbal medicine may constitute a useful adjunct to assisted reproductive technology in women.

Keywords

Herbal Medicine; Improvement of the Oocyte Development Rate; Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection; Oocyte Quality; Repeated Infertility Treatment Failure

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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